Seth Powers Photography

An intersection of photography and architecture in Shanghai, China

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Architecture Photography - Tip 2

Choose The Right Equipment

1. Lens

As we saw in the first tip, keeping your verticals straight is critical to photographing architecture. But what if keeping everything straight means that we see too much of the floor? And that great ceiling feature is cut off right in the middle? In comes what are called tilt-shift lenses, or perspective correction lenses. The shift function allows you to adjust your view without tilting the camera up or down and causing the straight lines to bend.  

Canon 24mm tilt-shift Assuming that we're using a DSLR kit rather than medium format digital, there are very limited options for these lenses. Canon comes out on top with two excellent tilt shift lenses for architecture, the 24mm and 17mm. Nikon on the other hand has only a 24mm tilt-shift that, while good, cannot compare to the clarity and quality of Canon's 24mm. 

2. Support

Since photographing architecture and interiors frequently involves precise composition and long exposure times, hand-holding your camera is not often an option. A sturdy and lightweight tripod is best and there are loads of options out there from good companies like Gitzo and Manfrotto. Generally, the lighter they are the more expensive they are.

More important than the tripod itself is the tripod head that connects your camera to the the tripod. For achieving precise compositions quickly and easily without pulling your hair out, I recommend a geared head. I use the Manfrotto 410 which allows for very small adjustments to be made smoothly.

Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared Head

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Architecture Photography - Tip 1

Keep your vertical lines straight

What's wrong with this image? Does it seem a bit "off"? One of the fundamental goals of architectural photography is to minimize the effect that the camera and lens has on the space that you're photographing. If you walked inside this room, no matter if you look up or down, your brain understands that the walls are straight rather than curving inward. But when we point our camera at the same room and move it around, the walls seem to bend inward and outward.  The lens introduces perspective and distortion, two things that you want to minimize as much as you can. By keeping the camera level, not tilted left or right, or tilted up and down, we can achieve straight lines and a realistic look.  Here is the corrected image:

See, Isn't that better?

This is the first in a series of tips about photographing architecture. Stay tuned for more!

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Sunny Skies

Back when Shanghai was full of sun and blue skies I shot this project for B+H Architects. They already had shots of the high-rise and needed to show off the low-rise buildings in the context of the main tower. Shooting in the morning and late afternoon was critical to showing off the reflectivity of the metallic surface on the low-rises. We needed the sun to be lower in the sky to get those nice specular highlights on the buildings, and for a change, the weather did not disappoint!

Check out some shots from the shoot:

Stay tuned for more updates!

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Power Station of Art

Along the southern bank of the Huangpu river (on the Puxi side, across from the expo center) is the Power Station of Art. As you might've guessed, it used to be a power plant and has since been transformed into an art museum by the folks at Original Design Studio. This past weekend I managed to get out and take some photos and as you can see, the building itself and the way it has been renovated is quite impressive. Not only that, it's a blissfully uncrowded place in this overcrowded city. Partly due to its enormous size and partly because of it's out-of-the-way location. Highly recommended for a relaxing weekend and there's an awesome patio on the 5th floor for watching the sun go down. Check it out!

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Center of Shanghai

Who knew you could find this kind of isolation in such a dense city? For those of you who know Shanghai, this is the Hong Kong New World tower, about 2 blocks from Xintiandi, along Huahai road. Definitely not an uncrowded spot and plenty of other tall buildings around. But sometimes, if you keep your eyes open, you find just the right spot.

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Coterie Store

Here are a few images I shot for Coterie's second store in Shanghai, in the new IAPM mall on Huaihai road. (Yes, the one with giant curvy Prada store on the corner). They're a boutique glasses shop that carry all kinds of international brands. You can check them out here: http://www.coterie.cn

In addition to some interior shots, we also took some time to get some detail photos of the interesting displays throughout the store.